This paper extends a lineage of research that reveals appropriative possibilities by which indigenous and ethnic communities have appropriated media technologies to serve their own cultural, political, and social visions. This paper focuses on networked and database-driven “new” media and information systems, and the possibilities and potentialities these hold within cultural scenarios. A case is presented that has focused on Native communities within the United States. Through this presentation, I present a methodology, process, and analysis of the means by which information systems can enable culturally and community-focused goals.

As networked digital systems are rapidly created and deployed, social, cultural, and community-focused issues are often neglected. Acknowledging the cultural practices and belief systems of a set of users may allow systems to be more effectively created and deployed into particular community contexts. Emerging research in community information systems and archives has highlighting possible interactions between system design and ethnographic research. These bridges include understanding how communities can begin to (1) create content for their own information systems, (2) design the database architectures, and (3) adopt information systems into their own infrastructures. In this paper, I first allude to several cultural criticisms that accompany the global proliferation of information technologies. These criticisms, I argue, can be responded to via information studies research that focuses toward developing systems based around ethnographic insights. Specifically, I present the research example of Tribal Peace, a cultural information system, designed for and by community members from the 19 Native American reservations of San Diego County (California, United States). This case has demonstrated the potential for a community to create an information system that satisfies its own priorities. This precedent points to the need for further research toward this convergence.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) development initiatives have begun to acknowledge the power and importance of cultural and community-focused belief systems. Yet the vast majority of such initiatives tend to Pre-identify developmental goals that communities hold. Paulo Freire’s writings have influenced development initiatives by introducing the possibility of working with communities to orient projects. While these “participatory” initiatives have involved soliciting community feedback relative to a research project whose goals were formulated in the university or development institution, they do not go far enough to harness to actual visions held by communities. It is important to conceptualize a model and methodology of engaging communities to develop and articulate their own goals of information access and ultimately, an indigenous approach toward cultural, political, and economic aspects of development. This approach holds promise to sustain within communities and return on the investment and efforts of the researcher or institution. This paper closes by describing a current initiative in Southern India that reflects the described methodology.

In this dissertation I present three case studies that are illustrative of how heterogeneous factors, including cultural values, institutional policies, and political interests, can inform the design, configuration, and use of internet-related technologies. My analysis builds upon the concept of internet “tussles” (Clark et al. 2005) and, in doing so, I propose an analytic method that I refer to as multi-tussle. Tussles are characterized by conflicting interests between two or more parties that are mediated by the internet. Tussles involve a combination of technical mechanisms and people, and the many ideals and values that motivate their use of the internet. The case studies that I present in this dissertation pull from my fieldwork in Detroit.

This paper presents a library-community convergence framework (LCCF) to extend the library’s role to participate more fully in community action and enhance its role as a proactive catalyst of social change, as compared to a sometimes perceived role of bystander. The LCCF for community action is relevant in the contemporary context of changing public demographics and an increasing need for library interactions with ethnic and multicultural publics. It provides a holistic approach for libraries to extend their existing functionalities and serve as catalysts for community-wide advocacy for people on the margins. The paper discusses select application of the LCCF for community action in two qualitative research studies with local immigrant communities and sexual minorities, that use methods pioneered in ethnographic outreach and participatory action research (PAR) respectively. We briefly present our field-based research in these two cases and connect them to our advocacy of the LCCF.

Ethnographic methods in the first study provide understanding of cross-cultural issues and uncover how local immigrant classifications can be induced from an ethnographic perspective to generate library classifications and information services that are locally relevant and empowering. PAR ideologies in the second study underlie implementation of library and information interventions and community action while partnering with local sexual minorities and their allies, to address specific and contextualized community facets in ways that may promote community-wide social changes. Points of intersection from the two studies help identify key elements in the LCCF framework that extend the role of libraries as leaders and cultural planners of progressive community-based action.

Abstract With the advent and accessibility of the Internet, artistic and indigenous communities are beginning to realize how digital technologies can be used as a means for documenting and preserving their histories and cultures. However, it is not yet clear what knowledge architectures are most appropriate for creating a digital museum in order to facilitate an effective collection, organization, conservation, and experience of cultural and artistic heritage. In this paper, we discuss the concept of ldquofluid ontologies,rdquo a novel, dynamic structure for organizing and browsing knowledge in a digital museum. Fluid ontologies are flexible knowledge structures that evolve and adapt to communitiesrsquo interest based on contextual information articulated by human contributors, curators, and viewers, as well as artificial bots that are able to track interaction histories and infer relationships among knowledge pieces and preferences of viewers. Fluid ontologies allow for a tighter coupling between communitiesrsquo interests and the browsing structure of a digital museum. We present the key ideas behind the use of fluid ontologies within the context of digital museum design and seminal work in metadata/dynamic ontologies, particularly as it pertains to objects of cultural heritage, and discuss these characteristics in three concrete examples: (1) Village Voice, an online agora that ties together the narratives created by a group of Somali refugees using an iteration of community-designed ontologies, (2) Eventspace, a node-based collaborative archive for design activities, and (3) Tribal Peace, an online digital museum still under construction and evaluation that uses proactive agents to tie distributed Kumeyaay, Luiseno, and Cupeno reservations together in their quest to achieve greater political sovereignty .